At Blidah, Captain Kennedy and his friend procured horses, and with their party strengthened by two Prussian officers, they set out for Medeah. West of the river Chiffa they came upon another military road, at which a battalion was then working. Men and officers were encamped in tents, and in huts constructed of boughs. “The men employed on this duty receive seventy-five centimes (about sevenpence) additional pay per diem; and during the winter and spring, as the work is not hard, it is rather preferred by the troops to garrison duty.” The system of providing employment for the soldier, when he is not actually opposed to the enemy, is very generally carried out by the French in their African colony, and also in France when it is possible to be done. Captain Kennedy evidently approves of it. At Medeah, a few minutes’ walk from the gate, are the gardens of the garrison. Each regiment or battalion has its piece of ground, divided into lots for the different companies, and supplying the troops with vegetables. “Here, as at other places I have since visited, the ground in the occupation of the troops was in a high state of culture, and superior both in produce and neatness of arrangement to the gardens of the civilians. * * * In many of our own colonies, and even at home, this system might be followed with beneficial results to our troops; for, putting aside the addition the produce would make to the comforts of the men, any employment or amusement that would tend to keep the soldier out of the canteen or public-house during his leisure hours, and there are many on whom it would have that effect, must be advantageous.”
Medeah is the capital of the province of Tittery, and the head-quarters of a subdivision of the French army, commanded by General Marey, to whom Captain Kennedy had introductions. To these the general did all honour, and sketched out for his guests the plan of an expedition to the Little Sahara. A French traveller, recording his visit to Medeah, has given the following ludicrous and melancholy account of the caravanserais of the town. “On a déjà plusieurs cafés avec l’inévitable billard, et deux hôtels où le travail est divisé, car l’un loge and l’autre nourrit; les chambres n’y sont pas encore tout à-fait meublées, et le charpentier n’a pas encore achevé l’escalier qui y monte. On y a oublié une certaine faience très utile, mais il y a déjà des miroirs.” This description, doubtless as true as it is characteristic, now no longer applies. Things have improved in the last year or two; and at the time of Captain Kennedy’s journey, the Medeah hotels were very tolerable. But he was eager for the desert, and tarried little in the town. Accompanied by an aide-de-camp of General Marey, who had volunteered to do the honours of the colony, and show to the English visitors life amongst the Bedouins, escorted also by a score of light infantry, a party of Spahis or native cavalry, by half a dozen officers of the garrison, several servants, and a vast number of dogs, our travellers struck into the Arab country. The district they were about to traverse being peopled by friendly tribes, this large attendance was less for purposes of protection to the Englishmen than of mischief to the wild-boars, which it was proposed to hunt. After a night passed in an Arab tent, the battue began; and although not very successful, only one boar being killed, the sportsmen deemed themselves well repaid for eight hours’ walk in a broiling sun, by magnificent scenery, and the excitement of the chase.